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Welcome back to George vs the Listener Cardnumber – I don’t think I’ve seen a puzzle based on a deck of cards before, but it’s an interesting idea. gwizardry (possibly named after Wizardry 6, one of the better PC roleplaying games of the 90s), has posed this puzzle based on two players locked in a death match of three-card poker (wihch Player 1 appears to be winning).

I started off with a few pages of notes, and eventually dug out a deck of cards thinking that might help me sort out what could possibly go where. There’s a few obvious starting points, I looked for all the numbers that were divisible by 11, 13 and 7 (that locked down which rows had jacks and sevens pretty easily), and row D has all clubs so it has to be 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 with either a straight flush winning or the 8 being the highest card.

Unfortunately, after a few hours of scratching, here’s where I got, and I had some mistake which got me stuck.

If at first you don’t succeed – make a bigger printout of the grid! Haven’t tried this before, but if you right click on the grid images in the Times Crossword Club you can print just the grid out on a whole sheet. Surely this makes it better!

Another few hours later, I’m about at the same stuck spot.

If at second you don’t succeed – go do something else. Sorry, gwizardry, but I could not penetrate this beyond the obvious (I’m probably missing some more obviousness). That’s two numericals that have defeated me this year, yikes!

Victory to the Listener Crossword! 2013 tally 14-3-3

Feel free to tell me that I’m missing something superobvious, and see you next week when Samuel gets us started on smoking.

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2 Responses

This was a tough puzzle and it took some getting used to the rules before I was able to see my way to the finish. The solution note on the Times website is pretty dismissive: ” Rules of poker scoring, card ordering, and availability of unplayed cards enabled further deductions.” If only it were that easy!

The LWO blog has provided two fully-worked solutions. A bit late, perhaps, but I hope that they clear up the route. It took me longer to work out where I’d been than to go there, though!